– Ten years ago today, World Wrestling Entertainment announced the purchase of World Championship Wrestling from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. WWE Director of Digital Media Content Joey Styles took to Twitter to chastise his employer for botching the subsequent “Invasion” storyline.

It is widely believed that WWE cost themselves millions of dollars by not utilizing big-name WCW talent for the storyline, such as Hulk Hogan, Bill Goldberg, Sting and Lex Luger.

— WWE Hall of Famer Sunny appears In The Room with Pro Wrestling Illustrated contributing writer Brady Hicks to discuss being the youngest inductee in the organization’s history, as well as her thoughts on being involved with World Wrestling Entertainment again. (Listen Here)

— WWE has a huge media day planned for Friday, April 1 in Atlanta, Georgia as a good portion of the roster will be on hand for interviews at the Georgia Dome.

Hey, at least we have the famous milk bath I gave to Austin everyone can look back on. Hahaha. Oh, wait! I forgot that WWE isn’t allowed to remember more than 6 months into the past….

CC

The point of Austin jumping was exactly the reasons you say. What was more shocking than one of the two guys that was the face of the WWE during the attitude era?
Having Austin jump was the right move, but it should not have been at the expense of the likes of Booker, but lets face it, it was just another way for Vince to show everyone how worthless he thought WCW was.

Bill

@Jimbo, Undertaker was in WCW at one point, but that doesn’t mean he should’ve been in the Alliance. Jericho couldn’t have either, since WCW misused him. Austin has always been the hero of the Attitude Era & WWF. He always made the save. He shouldn’t have been the “bad guy”. Now, there is no hero. Cena doesn’t count. If Austin still wrestled today, he would be the guy to save JR from Cole, or something. I’m not saying he’s “Super Austin”, but at least when he beat up a guy, it made sense. Cena gets mauled by the Miz for a month & destroys him & A-Ry as if nothing happened. At least Austin would be limping or have bandages or something. Bottom line is, the Invasion could’ve been better. They should’ve let WWF get the victory at Survivor Series or something, then have nWo return to reignite the Invasion, then have Austin defeat Hogan or something to end the storyline for good. Maybe include a DDP & Rock rivalry, too.

Jimbo

@Bill

I get what you’re saying, DDP and/or Booker T should have been the leader. Kurt Angle defecting though wouldn’t have made sense. Austin had connections to WCW going back to his “Stunning” Steve Austin days.

Bill

They had DDP, but they didn’t use him right, He should’ve led the Alliance, not Stone Cold. Stone Cold as a heel didn’t really work. He should’ve led the WWE & have someone like Kurt Angle defect to the Alliance instead of Austin, but then again, we never would’ve had that hilarious milk bath segment.

Devil_Rising

WWE could have had Hall, Nash, Goldberg, etc. under contract, Rey Mysterio Jr., etc. They didn’t want to buy out those contracts, because they were worth a LOT of guaranteed money from Time/Warner. WWE bought WCW for cheap, you honestly think they’re gonna pay more for ONE of those top stars than they would for the entire company’s assets? No joke.

adam

ya i mean most of them hogan sting nash and hall espically pretty much wrote there own contracts. Its sad how much tna reminds me of wcw now. I mean it starts off awesome things you have never scene before. For wcw the war games match and they were the first to do 3 stages of hell. Then in tna the x-division ultimate x 6 sided ring. But then slowly they start showing signs of decaying i just dont know how much longer tna can go with the current staff running things. I honestly dont know why they even hired russo. Well i kind of due because back in wcw russo was the one who gave jeff the wcw title so he braught him to his company were they just kept putting the title on jeff. The only real worth while former wwe siging tna has had was kurt angle and christian. Jeff was good but is a mess in general rvd is alright but isnt the draw he used to be. Matt Hardy is good but isnt that impressive with out jeff and you can tell tna doesnt have much faith in him either. When jeff went down you would think they would move Matt into his slot but no they pick bubba ray dudley. Matt morgan i dont think he will turn out to be anything there. And anderson proved he shouldnt have the title because he was hardly a draw as a champ.

CC

Oh, and the other thing that Styles forgets is that the contracts in WCW were seriously over paid, so any extra money that WWE earned from an angle with all those names he mentioned would probably have been less than the cost of those guys contracts.
WWE was never gonna pay that sort of money as thats one of the things that ended up killing WCW anyway, and you cant imagine those guys would take the kind of paycut that WWE would have offered.
The only reason some of them ended up coming to WWE years later would be that they had nowhere else to go or when negotiating as a single star, they were probably able to get a slightly better offer.

Jimbo

I’m not defending WWE, saying their always great or anything…but…Joey Styles, STFU. Seriously…you are annoying…in real life.

adam

ya overall the invasion storyline was pretty cool i went to that ppv actually. If nash and sting would of been involved it would of been cooler. Joey is just upset because ecw went under and thats were he announced for. I am upset about that to but the fact is ecw ran its course got baught out like wcw and now there both done.

CC

whoops, that last bit should be WCW show!

CC

Styles is talking shit quite frankly. How could WWE utilise talent they didnt have under contract? Those guys contracts were not part of the buyout deal, and took some serious negotiating with over the years to either get them to come to WWE or turn them down.
I’m sure WWE would have loved to have had the biggest names in WWE history so they could bury them, but it wasnt their choice.

And anyway, the initial plan WWE had was for them to run a separate WCW show, but the networks would not pick it up. If that had happened, there might have been a better angle come out of the Invasion. As it was, the match between Buff Bagwell and Booker went so badly that nobody could see any reason to have a WWE show.